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Thursday, May 11, 2017

Making Cannabis Tincture

Making Cannabis Tincture Chasing the Green Dragon

Great news! You can make full-spectrum cannabis tinctures in your own kitchen with almost no work. Formerly, this job was a messy, smelly, tedious, time-consuming, and dangerous chemistry experiment involving flammable liquids and a stovetop burner (not a great combination). In 2012 it became vastly simpler with the invention of an appliance called the Easy Butter 2 Stick Magic Butter Maker

The general idea behind preparing a cannabis tincture involves grinding and soaking high-quality buds in high-proof ethyl alcohol such as Everclear or Bacardi 151. The alcohol dissolves the THC and CBD (cannabidiol), leaving the plant matter behind. You then simply strain your alcohol/bud mixture to remove any debris from your final tincture.

For this alcohol extraction process, what could be easier than a self-contained, push-button device with digital programming that handles everything for you? Just put your herb and alcohol inside the countertop extractor, push a couple of buttons, and save yourself the intense labor that goes into making a tincture caveman-style. (Here’s a video of how easy it is.) It even comes with its own super tough, reusable nylon filter bag. So you can leave the cheesecloth, coffee filters, and pantyhose in the drawer.

Consuming fresh, raw cannabis or its cannabis tincture can’t get you high because the THC is locked in its “acid” form (cleverly named “THC acid”, or THCA). Fortunately, somewhere along the line, a cannabis enthusiast who happened to be a scientist discovered an incredibly simple step called decarboxylation. This process uses heat to create THC from the THCA within the herb. You can decarb your sample before adding it to your MagicalButter machine by baking it for half an hour at 250°F/120°C, generating some kushin’ for the pushin’!

Where does the green in green dragon come from? When soaking your herbal delights, you get a little more than you bargain for: Much of the plant’s chlorophyll seeps through, along with the desired cannabinoids and terpenoids. Chlorophyll has many healthful properties, from potent antioxidant and body deodorant effects to cellular cleansing and appetite suppression. And it gives your tincture its distinctive, deep, dark green color. Often, though not always, the darker the green, the danker the dragon.

This is the best part. You can do nearly anything with the cannabis tincture at this point, from mixing it into a milkshake to adding to any recipe you can think of and many more recipes that you never would have dreamed of. For maximum potency it can even be reduced by evaporating most of the alcohol, creating MagicalButterOil of Cannabis.

The sublingual method of tincture administration, say, a medicine dropper full held under the tongue, will provide the quickest onset of effects (about 15-30 minutes). You can also throw it straight down the hatch and in 30-90 minutes reap your reward. But where’s the fun in that?

From gummy creations of every shape and size, along with your choice of flavors, you can make your confectionery dreams come true. And it doesn’t stop there: You can create make soups, salad dressings, sauces, an oral mist, cocktails, even edible healing salve. The possibilities are without limits. So be creative, be experimental, and be responsible, because your “concoction” can be pretty potent!